Only one appearance by Hvorostovsky, the Russian who is the best Verdi baritone I've heard since....Warren, maybe....but what a role for him...and based on the "preview" they will be doing it with a Mafia theme...moving it up from Colonial times (and even farther away from Sweden)

And Fleming as Desdemona....I don't think I've heard her to that role before.

Yes,but not at Covent Garden and not with Keenlyside. I saw it in Frankfurt in January 2010 (and Mefistofele next day). It was performed "in englischer Sprache mit deutschen Ubertiteln". It started very well with the storm but thereafter it was rather bitty, and scandalously did not use Shakespeare's text most of the time (the guilty party was someone called Meredith Oakes but I'm sure that Adès could have demanded Shakespeare if he'd wanted to). The Prospero (Adrian Eröd) was also a bit underwhelming. Cyndia Sieden, the stratospheric Ariel, was the only cast-member to have been in the Covent Garden premiere. Probably worth seeing, and I imagine that the Met will provide a good staging.

Full fathom five thy father lies;Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes;Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:Ding-dong.Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.

It's extremely difficult for me to put a Shakespeare play out of my mind and watch a Shakespeare-based opera as a different work altogether; I'm still in shock from Thomas's Hamlet. Some years back, every time the Met broadcast Otello, someone on one of the intermission programs would announce he preferred the opera version of the story to Shakespeare's. I could weep! YouTube has a few clips from Adès's Tempest. My flaky computer would allow me to watch only one of them, but that one shows Ariel singing an impossibly difficult passage. Soprano Cindia Seydon makes it possible, though; she does a beautiful job with the music. But her words are almost totally incomprehensible. Thank heaven for subtitles.

I'm delighted to see Elena Garanca on the schedule. I'd still love to see her Dalila; I know she's sung it in Germany, perhaps elsewhere. But Tito is looking good.

The one thing Otello has that Shakespeare did not contribute is Iago's Credo. And it works in the opera, but somehow I don't think it would work in the drama...Oh, and I'm afraid I find "un baccio, etc" much more moving than "I kissed thee err etc."

Come to think of it, I believe I like Falstaff better than Merry Wives, too....